


The Yellow String

by ohstars, sparkstarthetrashcan



Series: Strung Together Universe [3]
Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt Miles Morales, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Platonic String, Red String of Fate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-23 18:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21085832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohstars/pseuds/ohstars, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkstarthetrashcan/pseuds/sparkstarthetrashcan
Summary: Peter and Miles have been friends for a while now, as Spider-Men and students at Midtown, but maybe, just maybe, their friendship runs deeper than either could imagine.This is the story of how they got their yellow platonic soulmate string.





	The Yellow String

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to our fic Follow the Yellow Brick Road! Basically, in this world, everyone gets strings with those they have a strong relationship with (positive and negative) with colours, placements and the state of the string to represent what their bond is like. There's also soulmate strings which are a brilliant red that link you to that person when you have skin to skin contact for the first time. Enjoy!

Peter groans as he’s thrown through a window. “Hey, Pika, you okay?” he asks, pressing a finger to his ear as the comms buzzed alive. 

There’s a crackle, then, “Can you tell hentai man to knock it off? That’d be great.”

“Oh god, I did _ not _ need that image in my head, thank you.” Peter shakes his head, the lenses on his mask focusing as he sits up. “Do you have eyes on him? I lost track of the octo-nerd when he threw me.” 

“Yeah, I’m running after him.” There’s a pause and Miles sounds breathless when he says, “He’s really fast!”

Peter crawls through the shattered glass and huffs. “He’s got eight bionic legs; of course he’s fast.” 

“I feel like he should be called Spider-Man more than us, with eight limbs and all. He just needs a new suit.” There’s a crash and the audio cuts off. When he comes back he adds, “but maybe not, he’s too old to look good in one.”

A bionic tentacle shoots past Peter. He thwips a web, catching a ride as the tentacle returns to its owner. “Do you think he chose the octopus because of the hydra thing or because octopuses are cool?” Peter lets go of the web and soars through the air. A tentacle snaps at him, another scraping against his thigh, but Peter’s momentum is too strong. He dropkicks Doc Ock, the scientist bobbing back and forth, and swings down an alleyway. 

“Wall crawling menace!” Doc Ock yells at them, shaking his fist like an old lady screaming about her lawn.

“Sheesh, what’s got your panties in a twist?” Miles jokes, jumping and swinging around the tentacles to land a blow to his guts. He’s too slow to avoid the last tentacle as he tries to escape, and the arm grabs him. He’s swung around and thrown into a car. He groans, holding his head.

Peter pauses, hanging off a building. “Miles?” He leans forward, shoulders tense as he watches Miles reorient himself, squished into the side of a sedan. 

“I’m fine,” he says, waving him off vaguely. He stands up, using the car as his support. He shakes out his arms. “It’s not the first time I’ve been thrown into a car.”

“Won’t be your last either,” Peter chuckles as he swings over Doc Ock once more. He drops down beside Miles and pats his back. “Probably won’t even be the last time today.” 

“Seriously, I’m fine. Go fight Octo guy, I’ll be right behind you,” Miles huffs, though his smile betrays him.

Peter rolls his eyes. “Not everything is about you, dude. We need to strategize while he’s out of it.” He points up to the floating man, his head still bobbing back and forth and his tentacles moving slower. Only Peter would notice the shift, but it’s there and that’s important. “If we can’t figure out what he’s after, then we need to figure out how to stop him. Best bet is to somehow detach the tentacles from his power pack or to cut the power off altogether.” 

“That sounds amazing, but I’ve got another idea,” Miles says.

“Oh really? I thought I was the veteran here?” 

“Well, you see, my plan is…” he pauses for dramatic effect, smirking. “Let’s call the Avengers.”

Peter presses his hands against his back, popping a disc back in place with a grunt. “Yeah, no, that’s not happening. We can handle this. Focus on distracting him while I take on the tentacles, got it?” 

“Sure. Have fun!” Miles shouts, running forward and slinging a web. He swings closer, taking a moment to watch the bobbing tentacles, before shouting, “Hey eight eyes! Did you make those arms_ just _ to overcompensate or what?”

Doc Ock stops what he's doing, snarling at the webhead. “Stay out of my business! I’ve got work to do, unlike you _ meddling kids _!”

“Oh boy, Scoobs,” Peter calls as he flips from rooftop to rooftop, eyes zeroing in on the five tentacles causing mayhem. “Looks like it was Mr. Jenkins all along.” 

“Hey, for your information I’m Velma!” Miles says with a huff. He twists out of the way of a tentacle aimed for his neck, then grabs the next one. He tugs as hard as he can, and Doc Ock stumbles.

“_ Stop bothering me! _” Doc Ock screeches. He brings two tentacles down hard, forcing Miles to jump out of the way. The ground cracks apart.

Peter watches as the tentacles move around Doc Ock’s body, trying to grab Miles while tearing through building after building. They never get close to Doc’s body, staying at least two feet away at all times, which means… 

He glides through the air, flipping and twisting around the metal tentacles. Peter pounces on Doc Ock’s back, feet sticking to his power pack and body tucked away from his prying tentacles and chubby hands. “You know, it’s not really fair that you have twelve limbs and I only have four. How are we supposed to fight equally when you already have the scales tipped in your favor?” Peter shakes his head and crouches down, parallel to the ground (and praying his suit lets him stick to the power pack long enough to do this). He wraps his arms around one base of a tentacle and pulls, squeezing tight. 

The metal cracks and creaks as Peter twists it off the power pack. He tosses the limp appendage to the ground with a thud, watching as the asphalt splits under the weight. 

“That’s a little better, don’t you think?” Peter asks. 

“Gah!” Doc Ock yells, grabbing Peter with two arms and throwing him to the ground. Before he could roll away, he picks him up again and slams him back down. “Leave me alone!”

Peter gasps, chest constricting as something pops inside of him. A dull pain erupts from either side of his torso, but he can’t think about that now. Peter grabs either side of the claw pressing into his body and pushes, muscles straining with the effort. He slips out and swings around Doc Ock, like a fly hovering over a picnic waiting for the right time to swoop in. 

As Doc Ock twirls around, trying to keep track of the arachnid, Miles takes his chance to grab at an arm. He jumps on his back, wrenching the metal as hard as he can. Doc Ock slaps his new pest away, then grabs his leg before he can hit the ground. He throws his ragdoll away, uncaring for where he lands.

Miles rolls to a stop, costume torn from the asphalt road, groans, then gets back and jumps back into the fray.

Peter dives for the power pack again, chest heaving and constricting like a broken record, skipping a rhythm he’d gotten used to. He rips apart Doc Ock’s power pack, tearing at cords and wires as electricity buzzed through his fingertips. His webs coated it all, destroying what was left of the machine. 

The tentacles fell limp all at once. 

Miles limps forward, “Well, that was… _ fun _,” he says sarcastically.

Peter flips away as Doc Ock tumbles to the ground, no longer supported by his invention. He webs the man to the road, capturing his limbs spread apart. Peter turns to Miles as the high of the fight thrums through his blood. “You can say that again.” 

“I’ll get you back for this,” Doc Ock says, low and threatening, “Mark my words I’ll-”

Miles webs his mouth shut, “Yeah, ok. See you then.” He turns to Peter, “Police been called?”

Flashing red and blue lights appear in the corner of Peter’s eye. His shoulders fall. “Yeah, I think we’re done here.” 

Miles smiles at him, “Time to go lick our wounds. We wrapped that up well, I think.”

Peter laughs as he thwips a web at the nearest streetlight. “Let’s get out of here, then.” 

They swing away, gliding through the air as fast as they can, distancing themselves from the aftermath. 

“Hey Peter, want to grab something to eat?” Miles asks, finger to his earpiece and thwipping with the other.

“Sure, who’s buying?”

“I will, I got some pocket money yesterday. Where do you want to go?” Miles twirls in the air. “McDonalds?”

Peter shrugs, wincing under his mask. “Yeah,” he says, voice tight, “that’s fine.” 

“You alright?” Miles questions. “Want to stop for a bit?”

“Yeah, let’s just,” he trails off as he hops over the ledge of a rooftop. Peter pulls off his mask and takes a deep breath. 

Miles lands on the roof, then takes a knee, whining in pain. “Ow…” he hisses, sitting back and taking weight off his left leg, looking at his legs. “Uh, yeah, I think I’ve got a problem.”

Peter gags. “Oh my god, what the hell did he do to your leg?” 

“I don’t know?” Miles says, taking off his own mask. He refuses to keep looking at his leg, that’s twisted at an odd angle. “But what about you? You’re wincing.”

“Having trouble breathing,” he says, voice wispy and soft. 

“We really need to work on not getting hurt,” Miles sighs. He goes to rub the back of his neck and stiffens. “...That’s blood.”

Peter jumps up, eyes wide and face pale. He stiffly walks over and turns Miles around. “That’s it. We need to get you home.” 

“I’m so glad your Aunt’s a nurse,” Miles says grimly, carefully getting up while keeping his leg from taking any weight.

“You and me both.” Peter helps steady Miles on his good foot before he shoots another web. “Ready?” 

“Yep, let’s go,” he says. He hops up onto the building’s ledge and thwips his own web, swinging away.

They’re quick to get to Queens. The swinging helps, faster than any other transportation they can afford at this point. 

Peter’s window is already open when they reach his building. Miles hops inside, sitting on Peter’s bed stiffly, mindful of the blood he must be dripping.

“I’ll go get Aunt May,” Peter says as he closes the window. He shuffles forward, peeling the suit off his body as he walks across the room.

“Peter? How hard did you go through that window?” Miles says, eyes wide with shock as he sees Peter’s back.

“Pretty hard,” he says. “But there was also that tentacle that grabbed me. Think that’s why I can’t breathe.” Peter kicks the suit into a hamper and hisses in pain. “But I also got flung into a couple of buildings when I was trying to wrangle the tentacles. Why?”

“You’ve got glass in your back…” his face pales. “Is that a bone?” He almost shouts.

Peter looks at the full length mirror on his door and gasps, immediately regretting it. His body is one huge bruise, a swirl of purple and black slashed with red cuts and dotted with blood. There’s a lump protruding from his ribcage, just above the imprint of the tentacle that covers his body. “Uh, that’s not good.”

Miles scrubs at his face, “Aunt May’s home, right?” He asks weakly.

“She’s home. I can hear her talking to her friend on the phone in the kitchen.” Peter opens the door and shuffles out. “I’m home,” he calls. 

“Peter?” Aunt May asks loudly. 

He leans against the wall of the hallway and waits for her. “Doreen, I’ll have to call you back, Peter just got home… Yes, of course. Talk to you soon. Good luck with that patient tomorrow… Have a good night.” He hears her set the phone down and walk through the living room. 

“How was it tonight?” she asks as she rounds the corner. Aunt May stops in her tracks, a hand at her throat but her face calm. “And is Miles better or worse?” she asks softly.

“I don’t know?” Miles says honestly, leaning to the side so he can see past Peter.

Aunt May shakes her head. “Kitchen table, now. And Miles, I would never allow this usually, but walk on the ceiling. Don’t put pressure on that leg.”

He salutes her, smiling despite myself. He carefully gets up and hops on one foot, managing to do a ‘handstand’ on the ceiling. No pressure on either leg, just his arms. He maneuvers his way in this weird position to the kitchen.

Peter pouts. “How come he can do that but I can’t?”

“Break your leg and we’ll talk,” Aunt May says as she passes him. “I’ll be back with the first aid kit.”

Peter’s slow and careful, but he makes his way to the kitchen and eases into a chair just as she’s returning with a suitcase. 

Miles at this point is sitting on the kitchen table. “I love that thing,” he says dreamily, looking at the suitcase.

“Did I say sit on the table or at the table?” Aunt May asks, leveling him with a raised eyebrow. She helps Miles into a chair and sets the suitcase on the floor beside her stool. “How did you two get yourselves into these situations?” 

“It’s a gift?” Peter asks. 

“It’s not our fault Octo-nerd hated us,” Miles shrugs, fiddling with a glove.

She shakes her head as she moves to wash her hands. “Miles, sweetie, do you have a second Spider-suit? Or is that your only one?” 

“I’ve been working on a second one, I could probably get it done in a couple of hours. Why?” He asks.

“You need to get out of that one so I can treat your leg.” Aunt May walks over and slips on a pair of latex gloves, sitting on her stool. “You have spare clothes here, don’t you?” 

Peter nods. “I have a drawer for him in my dresser.”

Aunt May pauses. “Really?”

“It’s easier,” Peter says, blushing as he looks away. “Don’t make it weird.” 

“I’m not making it weird. You’re the one with a dresser drawer dedicated to someone else who you’re not romantically involved with,” she says. 

Peter raises an eyebrow. “Would you rather it be for someone I was dating? Cause that can be arranged.”

Aunt May looks up to the ceiling, dotted with bloody handprints, and sighs. “You’re making me age faster, Peter. I’m not ready for all of that.” 

“I mean, if he stopped swooning he could totally get with MJ,” Miles says casually, wriggling his eyebrows at Peter.

Peter glares at him. “You’re the worst, Pikachu.” 

Aunt May rolls her eyes. “Oh please, don’t act like I don’t already know.”

Peter winces as he shrugs. “It doesn’t matter anyway. We’ve shook hands before and there was no reaction from the string.” He motions to the red string hanging from his chest, a sharp contrast to the dark bruise forming beneath it. 

“That doesn’t mean you two can’t see each other. Soulmates are not the only option when it comes to dating. Take that Liz girl you saw-”

“Whose dad tried to kill me,” Peter interjects.

“You two weren’t soulmates and yet you had a great time with her,” Aunt May says. She turns to Miles. “I thought I told you to get out of that suit?” 

“Right, gotcha.” He says, “Sorry.” Miles shuffles out of his suit piece by piece until his leg is free, being especially careful not to mess with his broken leg. “Tada?”

“Alright,” she says. “Time to get to work.”

* * *

“Hey, hey Peter,” Miles whispers from his mattress on the floor, his goofy smile visible even in the dark.

“Yeah Miles?” Peter whispers.

“What if, what if we had eight limbs like octo-nerd. Like, we got bit and turned into freaky, mutant people with eight limbs. That would be wack,” Miles says, voice hushed.

Peter snorts. “That’s gross.” There’s a pause. “Wait, do you think he chose the tentacles because he secretly has six other baby arms that never developed in the womb? So he just has six little nubs on his sides and uses those to inspire the getup?” 

“Dude! That’s even worse,” Miles says, grossed out even as he giggles.

“No, it’s not. It’d be worse if _ we _ got stuck with the nubs.”

“It would be great for Halloween,” Miles laughs, “imagine bringing those suckers out to scare people.”

“The best Halloween costumes are the ones no one expects.” 

“But, like, imagine if they’re not even nubs. Like they’re half arms. And you attach fake spider arms to them and wriggle them around. That would be so freaky!” Miles hushedly exclaims, turning to him in the dark.

Peter giggles, groaning at the strain on his broken ribs. “Stop making me laugh, it hurts,” he whines. 

“Hey, we’re talking hypotheticals here not jokes,” Miles argues, even as he settles back down.

“That doesn’t mean it’s not funny,” Peter says weakly. He closes his eyes and settles into the pillows. He’s quiet for a moment, then he snorts. “Okay but what if he’s not even real? Like what if he’s like Krang from _ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles _? But with a freakin’ octopus?” 

“I’ll do you one better, I think he’s the Kraken but like, in his human-sona.”

“How would that even work?” 

“Shrinking potion? Remote-controlled robot? I don’t know, something insane probably,” Miles shrugs, covering his mouth as he yawns.

“What would the point be? Think about it,” Peter shifts to look at Miles over the side of his bed. “He could just as easily destroy us in his true Kraken form.”

“Just because it makes absolutely zero sense doesn’t mean it’s not the reality. Besides, what makes people dress up in their furry-sona’s? No one knows! But they do it. I’m just sayin’, Doc Ock is the Kraken’s Human Sona.”

“The Kraken is stupid, then. Making mechanical tentacles that aren’t nearly as powerful or as tactile as their regular tentacles is pointless. I wonder if it’s a kink thing?”

Miles groans, burying his head in his pillows. “Don’t bring the subject of Kink anywhere near Doc Ock, thanks.”

Peter smirks as he lays back down. “I’m just saying, no one makes that many tentacles without a reason. You usually start small, right? Make prototypes? I wonder what he’s doing with all those…” 

Miles grabs his pillow and smacks Peter’s head, ignoring his spluttering. “Gross!”

“You called him hentai man when we were fighting him!” Peter laughs, holding his ribs. 

“Because we were fighting him! It’s an honoured tradition of bantering during fights. But you’re bringing it home and that’s just not cool!”

Peter shakes his head. “Alright fine. We should sleep, let our bodies heal and stuff.” 

“Yeah, we probably should.” Miles settles down and closes his eyes.

The quiet only lasts for about ten minutes, fifteen tops, before Peter’s giggling again, like a child in the back of a sex-ed class. 

Miles rolls over and says, “What?”

“I was picturing Doc Ock in an anime fighting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, only to open him up and reveal a humanoid Kraken in a school girl’s uniform,” Peter says seriously.

Miles scrunches his face up in confusion and horror. “Dude, what the hell is going on in your brain?”

“I don’t know? Things get weird when I’m in pain.”

Miles shakes his head, smiling like a fool. “Mood.”

* * *

Peter groans as he stretches his arm out. “So close, yet so far,” he laments, fingers grasping at nothing. He’s laying on the couch in basketball shorts with his torso bandaged up. 

“So close to what?” Miles asks, leaning on the couches arm. His leg is plastered from his thigh down, and the back of his head has a huge bandage covering up the stitching.

“The remote,” Peter gasps, pretending to strain towards the remote on the coffee table no more than a foot away from him. He sighs. “Whatever.” Peter shoots a web at the remote and brings it back to him. “What should we watch?”

“Hmm, not the news because I don’t want to see my epic fails yet. How about a documentary?” Miles suggests.

“There’s that one about the zoo?” Peter flips through the channels. 

“Sounds good. Let’s just hope we don’t see any octopuses,” Miles jokes, sinking further into the couch.

Peter snorts, then whines, grabbing at his ribs. “God, I can’t wait until this heals.” 

“I can’t even go home with this,” Miles complains. “Ganke is the best, I asked him to cover for me and he did. What a ‘sleepover’ we’re going to have.”

“Mood,” Peter says. “Ned’s pretty much got the ‘Peter has a deadly illness and is in the hospital’ routine down pact. Pretty sure half of the staff thinks I’ll die before graduation.” 

Miles laughs, “If only they knew!”

Peter nods. “Got that right.” 

* * *

“How is your lap so comfy? Have you been practising your comfiness?” Miles mumbles sleepily, stretched out along the couch with his head on Peter’s lap.

“I think it's my thighs. Bigger thighs are always comfy.” Peter leans his head back against the cushion, a hand on Miles’ head (careful of his stitches) and the other clicking through the channels. “I swear I’m going insane here.”

“Like you aren’t already?” Miles points out, raising an eyebrow.

“Shut up.” Peter smiles. “I haven’t been stuck inside this long since that blizzard hit a few years back.” 

“Oh yeah. That was great, I played Minecraft for forty-eight hours and my parents had no good reason to stop me,” Miles says, smiling at the memory.

“Lucky. We lost power so May and I were stuck playing uno by candlelight for hours. I think we were both ready to kill each other.” 

Miles muffles his laugh with his hand. “May’s so calm I can’t imagine her ready to strangle you! Then again… she does have to put up with our Spider-Man shenanigans.”

“Usually she’s a saint with magic powers, but when she ran out of coffee day one?” Peter let out a slow breath. “Wasn’t a pretty sight.” 

“Sounds like you in exam week,” Miles snorts.

“Listen.” Peter looks down at Miles. “You try taking six AP classes at once while juggling being a superhero, academic decathlon, and taking pictures for the Daily Bugle and see how you react to exam week.”

He pauses, considers, then admits, “Yeah, true. I’m not looking forward to exams, either.”

“You’ll do fine. You’re only a freshmen -- it’s still somewhat easy then.”

“I mean, true.” Miles settles down, watching the tv shows flick by.

Peter puts Spongebob on and tosses the remote onto the coffee table. He leans back, easing into the sofa. 

It’s been three days since their fight with Doc Ock, three days filled with junk food and bad TV as they healed. Overall, he’s feeling better. It’s still hard to breathe and his body aches every time he blinks, but the bruising is starting to fade and he can move a little more than he could the first night. 

Peter’s hand moves over Miles’ forehead without him thinking, fingertips delicately running over the smooth skin as he draws shapes. His body was moving on his own accord as his brain went a mile a minute, eyes glued to the screen in a daze, where Squidward was gorging himself on krabby patties. 

As bored as he is and as much as he wants to return to normal life, it’s been nice. Hanging out with Miles without the pressures of Spider-Man or surrounded by dicks like Flash at school has been nice. There’s an unexpected normalcy to it that Peter hasn’t experienced in years, not since before Uncle Ben passed when Harry and Gwen were still around. Peter doesn’t have the luxury of just hanging out with his friends without a care in the world; he’s always preparing for the next big fight or patrol or something school related, too busy to enjoy the simplicity of watching old cartoons with his friend. 

An itch pulls Peter back to earth. His hand freezes as the itch transforms into pins pricking his palm. Peter hisses in pain as he rubs his palm. 

Miles is rubbing at his own palm, as if he’s trying to wipe something away. When he hears Peter hiss he blinks up at him, frowning sleepily, “You good?”

“Yeah, my palm just itches.” Peter’s digging into his skin, trying to soothe the itch but he can never quite scratch hard enough. 

“Huh, same,” Miles mumbles, relaxing. Then he frowns, “wait a minute.”

Peter’s about to ask him ‘what’ when his nail catches something. He looks down at his palm, where a single thread wraps around his hand. It’s thin, but gradually getting thicker. The thread twists around his hand, going in between his fingers and around the base of his wrist. It’s yellow, a shimmering gold against his skin, like a ray of sunshine threaded around his hand. 

“Peter, we got strings!” Miles says excitedly, looking up with delight at him. He’s marvelling at his own end of the string, absently running his fingers across the lines.

“Whoa,” Peter whispers. He touches Miles and a path forms between their strings. 

“It’s about time, too,” Miles says with a huge grin. “How long have we known each other? Not long enough but still!”

“Like six months?” 

“Something like that. And it’s yellow too!”

“Isn’t that friends?” 

Miles nods, “As if we need confirmation. But yeah, yellow is friendship.”

“This is…” Peter’s cheeks ache with his smile. “This is cool.” 

“And we only had to get injured for it to pop up,” Miles jokes.

Peter glares down at Miles. “We’re not getting another one.” 

“Aw, but getting hurt and being able to hang out and do nothing is so much fun,” Miles whines.

“Okay good point.” 

“I guess we’ll just have to do it more often,” he says nonchalantly.

“Just not… too often? I think Aunt May might catch on to us.”

“Hmm.” Miles looks thoughtful, then snaps his fingers, “That’s it! My Mum works at the same hospital as Aunt May. What if we get them to be friends so we can hang out more often?”

Peter snorts, nose scrunching as he does. “Or we could just hang out? We’re not eight, dude.”

He considers that, “But scheming things is fun?”

“Okay we’ll do it.” 

Miles pumps his fist, “Team yellow string!”

Peter just smiles and leans back against the cushions.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to meinposhbastard for betaing our story! And thank you all for reading our story!
> 
> -Ohstars and Sparkstarthetrashcan


End file.
